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20

Wire & Cable ASIA – January/February 2011

Telecom

news

Two cables under the

Tasman Sea between New

Zealand and Australia

would be one too many

Each of two New Zealand companies

– Kordia and Pacific Fibre – has

plans for an undersea cable linking

New Zealand with Australia. But,

as reported on

telecomasia.net

,

both company chiefs acknowledge

that only one such project would

be viable. (“NZ Firms Square Off in

Tasman Cable Race,” 11

th

October).

State-owned Kordia is the former

Television New Zealand transmission

arm that now operates on both sides

of the Tasman Sea. Pacific Fibre is a

private company founded in 2010 by

six New Zealanders.

Dylan Bushell-Embling of

telecomasia.

net

noted the similarities and

differences between the two projects.

Kordia’s $100 million OptiKor cable

would connect Auckland with Sydney

and then link with the PPC-1 of PIPE

Networks, running from Australia to

Guam. The Pacific Fibre cable is slated

to link Auckland with Sydney and then

the United States. That project would

cost an estimated $400 million.

Kordia CEO Geoff Hunt told Dylan

Bushell-Embling of

telecomasia.net

that his company’s cable would take

advantage of the absence of com-

petition in New Zealand’s international

bandwidth market.

Southern Cross’s SXC is currently the

only cable with spare capacity linking

Australia and New Zealand.

“There’s a lack of diversity for the

Auckland-to-Sydney route, [and] SXC

is the only game in town,” he said.

“So competition was needed to bring

bandwidth pricing out of New Zealand

to realistic levels.”

Mr Hunt commented that the mere

threat of competition from the two

projects had already brought capacity

prices down significantly. Southern

Cross was said to have slashed its

fees by 75% since the OptiKor project

was announced.

While OptiKor is in an “advanced stage

of preparation,” according to its CEO

– with surveys completed and landing

routes plotted – the project has not

advanced to the construction phase.

Mr Hunt acknowledged, “We need

foundation customers in place to

underpin the financing of the project

and we don’t have them in place.”

For its part, Pacific Fibre has a

tentative rollout schedule that would

see a vendor chosen early this year

and the cable in service by 2013, CEO

Mark Rushworth said. But his project,

too, has met with obstacles: “typical”

issues of technology, funding, and

sales. As noted by

telecomasia.net,

the two parties are looking into the

possibility of a collaboration.

Elsewhere in telecom . . .

The

Nikkei Weekly

, Japan’s

English–language business news-

paper, reported on 21

st

October

that negotiations were believed

to be under way for the imminent

$1.2 billion purchase of Keane Inc,

a Boston-based IT services firm,

by NTT Data Corp of Japan.

NTT Data is the network-services

unit of the largest Japanese phone

company, and the strengthening

of its presence in the US would

advance its stated aim to

quadruple overseas sales in the

three years to March 2013.

“Broadband is the next tipping point, the next truly transformational

technology,” asserts secretary-general Hamadoun Toure of the International

Telecommunications Union. “It can generate jobs, drive growth and

productivity, and underpin long-term economic competitiveness.”

The report “The World in 2010: ICT Facts and Figures,”

published by the ITU

in October, presents the Geneva-based UN agency’s analysis of the current

state of information and communication technologies around the globe.

The opening section, “The Rise of 3G,” provides these statistics:

By the end of 2010, there will be an estimated 5.3 billion mobile cellular

subscriptions worldwide, including 940 million subscriptions to

third-generation (3G) services

Access to mobile networks is now available to 90% of the world’s

population and to 80% of those living in rural areas

People are moving rapidly from 2G to 3G platforms, in both developed

and developing countries. In 2010, 143 countries were offering 3G

services commercially, compared to 95 in 2007

Regarding 4G, a number of countries have started to offer services at

even higher broadband speeds, moving to next-generation wireless

platforms. These include Sweden, Norway, Ukraine and the United States

“Towards The End Of Double-Digit Mobile Growth,” the second section of the

ITU report, supplies these statistics:

Mobile cellular growth is slowing worldwide. In developed countries, the

mobile market is reaching saturation levels with on average 116 sub-

scriptions per 100 inhabitants at the end of 2010 and a marginal growth of

1.6% from 2009 to 2010

At the same time, the developing world is increasing its share of mobile

subscriptions from 53% of total mobile subscriptions at the end of 2005

to 73% at the end of 2010

In the developing world, mobile cellular penetration rates will reach

68% at the end of 2010, mainly driven by the Asia-Pacific region. India and

China alone are expected to add over 300 million mobile subscriptions

in 2010

In the African region, penetration rates will reach an estimated 41% at the

end of 2010 (compared to 76% globally), leaving a significant potential

for growth

The remaining sections of the report are: “SMS Triples in Three Years”;

“Two Billion People on the Internet but Too Few in Africa”; “Connecting

Homes”; “The Continuing Broadband Divide”; and “Broadband Speed and

Affordability”. The World in 2010: ICT Facts and Figures may be read in its

entirety on the ITU website

www.itu.int

After a decade of growth driven by mobile

technologies, the UN’s telecoms agency takes

stock of the connecting-up of the world